


Nimbus

by NaturalFrequency



Category: Code:Realize ～創世の姫君～ | Code: Realize - Guardian of Rebirth (Visual Novel)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24897241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaturalFrequency/pseuds/NaturalFrequency
Summary: Victor no longer runs from the past, but it still hurts when it catches up to him. Cardia cannot stand for it. He should be able to sleep without a consistent fear of nightmares, and she aims to do something about it.
Relationships: Cardia Beckford/Victor Frankenstein
Comments: 11
Kudos: 37





	Nimbus

**Author's Note:**

> nimbus, nimbi (Latin): [dark] cloud, rainstorm
> 
> \--- 
> 
> Post Main Game setting. Future Blessings not required, can take place before or after.
> 
> The idea is sourced in one of the drama CDs, which indicates/heavily implies that Victor doesn't sleep when it rains.
> 
> \---

Cardia could tell it was going to rain again that evening. She pressed her lips together as she looked to the sky, hand against her bedroom window. The sun had almost slunk out of sight, the final rays lighting upon dark clouds at the horizon.

He hadn’t been able to sleep the last time. Or the time before.Or the time before that.Any time it rained at night, Victor could not—or perhaps _would_ not—sleep until it was over. And it hurt to see happen. Sometimes she would wake and he would be sitting at the edge of the bed, or laying with his hand across his eyes, breath ragged. A few times he was not even there, and she thought perhaps she could hear the dull sounds of pen scratching on paper, or muffled clinks of flasks and vials in the distance.

He caught her watching him in the middle of the night once, tried to assuage her concerns with one of his gentle laughs. _“Ahaha, Cardia. It’s nothing to worry about. I’m just getting some water. Please, don’t stay awake on my account.”_ But from the way he moved when he got up, the way he sighed and laid down when he returned, a mere glass of water—if that was indeed what he rose for—did nothing for his troubled spirit.

She watched as the wind picked up in the courtyard below, tweaking the tops of the skinny trees and ruffling the vegetation beneath them.

Thunder rolled in the distance.

She couldn’t let him suffer another sleepless night. She couldn’t. It wasn’t fair to him. He could face each day—face _her_ — with kindness and confidence. But the rain at night…

It would put him right back to that one day, the day he tried for years to escape from, to atone for.It rained that day, when he chanced upon the brutality, the horror. And for that, the rain would never allow him to sleep. Not without nightmares.

Cardia slammed the flat of her hand against the bureau in frustration. It wasn’t fair to him. It—

“Cardia?”

She snapped her head up in surprise, stepping backwards. A startled bark later and she was on the floor, rubbing her head and chastising Sisi for darting between her ankles.

“Cardia, are you all right? I heard—” Victor trailed off as he peeked his head in the door. He smiled that gentle smile of his and held his hand out to her. “I heard you fall, I suppose.”

“Yes,“ she said, face a little flushed. If not for Sisi, he might have asked what she was thinking about. Though she struck the end table behind her pretty hard on the way down, she felt grateful to the dog for his nosiness. She let Victor pull her up.

Ever vigilant in his care for her, he tilted her head forward to check where she had been hurt. She might have told him it wasn’t that bad, that he didn’t need to look, but she enjoyed the feeling of his hands on her head and hair. It was comforting to be doted upon in such a way. Face pointed at the floor, she watched Sisi happily wind around their legs, whole butt wagging.

“Sisi you should should apologize to her, you know.” Victor said, when he finally took his hands back.

Sisi sat down, only to scratch an ear with a hind leg before springing back up and trotting out the door.

“He didn’t mean anything by it. And see? I’m fine. Just as I said.” She reached back and touched the new bump to demonstrate, wincing only a very slight amount.

“I could get you something for it, if it’s still sore.”

“How about you make us some tea while I take Sisi out instead?”

The agreement made, she followed after the little dog and let him outside while she glanced around the courtyard. Thunder rumbled louder now, and she willed with all her might the storm would take a different turn. The wind rippled across the flowers and shook the branches above. She took it for a negative reply.“Oh! Sisi!” She chided,suddenly running forward, “No! Those are Victor’s! Don’t dig up all his hard work!”

By the time they were all in bed later, the rain had already started.

* * *

Cardia watched him silently in the dark, unable to let herself sleep when it was obvious he had no intention to try himself.He lay calmly for a time, but when the sound of water striking the roof and the panes increased beyond a delicate patter, he grew restless. Moving carefully and disturbing the bed as little as possible, he rose and left.

She waited, for a time, hoping he would wander back. The endless ticking of the room’s clock grew louder with her apprehension and his prolonged absence. When it became too much, she threw off her covers and scurried out the door after him. Sisi kicked once, but otherwise remained comfortably asleep on the bed.

She found Victor at the table downstairs, the one they had eaten at so often with their friends. One of the electric lamps softly lit his work, and he was dutifully writing in his journal. The only sounds aside from the rain and thunder were the scratching of his pen and the crisp brushing of paper against paper when he turned a page.

She watched him for a time, quietly and at a distance, until he paused, removing his glasses with one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose with the other. Thunder rolled overhead.

Cardia thought about how many times he had taken her hand, when they were running, when they were cornered. Even before her stomach had begun to flutter at his touch, he had taken care of her. _Selfishly,_ he told her. _For my own atonement_. But it didn’t matter, in the end. It was a guiding force for her, pulling her towards futures she could barely imagine at the time.

Perhaps she was feeling selfish now, wanting to help him for her own peace of mind and soul.

She walked up and took his hand in hers anyway.

Victor jolted at her touch. “C-Cardia! What are you doing awake?” Instinctively he pulled on his hand, but she held fast, taking the arm of his glasses out of it and setting them aside. “You should be in bed,” he told her, expression compassionate, but somewhat guarded.

“Come.”

His mouth hung open, a silent question, silent resistance hanging in the air.

She tugged gently on his hand. “Come,” she insisted.

Letting out a heavy breath, he stood and allowed her to lead him away from the table and his journal, barely reaching for his glasses in time to put them back on.But when she led him not to the stairs, but to the door for the inner courtyard, he balked. “Where are you going? The bedroom is not…” It was such an obvious statement. Of course it wasn’t outside. “You and I could get catch a cold if we went out there.”

When Cardia opened the door, the soft lamplight barely lit up the wet path outside, and the area just beyond ever so slightly. The rain was light, but the lazy peals of thunder and flashes of lightning meant the storm hadn’t finished coming in. This was the best chance she had. She squeezed his hand and looked back at him. “Would you…. Trust me?” It was a high order to make. She wasn’t sure she trusted herself. She just…. had a thought, and was following it in the perhaps naive hope that maybe, just maybe, it would do something for her beloved’s aching soul.

She felt him squeeze her hand in response, and her chest warmed with the affirmation, but if he spoke it was much too quiet to hear through the rain. She would also have to speak up if she wanted him to hear her outside. She made a mental note of it.

They were lucky it was a summer month, or perhaps it would have been suicidal to consider this at all. The rain was cool, but the lingering warmth of day meant it wasn’t freezing, at least not yet. She walked carefully down the path she knew so well to the courtyard, marveling a bit, at the sensations happening under her bare feet. She hadn’t thought to walk barefoot outside before, and the experience was distracting. The slick stones and mud were puzzling and alien, and she would have slipped if Victor had not had such a firm grip on her.

“Cardia, if you wanted to experience the rain, surely we could have done better than to come out in the dead of night. I don’t want you to get hurt because we can’t see.”

She turned to him, blinking water from her eyes and shaking her head, though he might not be able to see it. “No. This is something else.” She pulled on his hand, instructing him to sit on the raised stone edge of one of the many garden plots they had both cultivated in the courtyard. He taught her how to weed and take care of her flowers here.

She was feeling colder now. Both of them were soaked through, and her clothes were slicked against her body. She shivered once, but refused to back down. Tentatively, carefully, considerate of all the time she had poison in her fingertips before, she let go of his hand and reached both of her own for his face. She gently held his cheeks between her palms and laid her forehead against his, like he had done for her, that terrifying night under the city.

_This is how I convey my feelings…. All of them… to you._ He had said. _I understand you fears and your past… all of your pain and suffering._ It was her turn to try and do for him what that touch and gentle affirmation had done for her.

Lightning lit up the courtyard, and she could see him, confused, blinking through the rain, yet eyes fixed on her.

“I know…. We can’t change the past.” She said, shivering more in the increasing downpour, “and we cannot run from it. But that doesn’t…. that doesn’t mean…” The words were hard. The rain was noisy. She doubted in her ability to properly say what she wanted. How had been able to say what was so perfect for her so many times before? His fingertips brushed the back of her hands, and she took a shaky breath.

“Cardia…” his voice was quiet, like he feared she might be preparing to chastise or reject him. She had to squash that fearful quietness immediately. This was to help him, this was—

“You can’t sleep when it’s raining, because when you discovered the terrible things they did with your research, it was raining. When you fell to your knees surrounded by….death, it was raining.” She felt him tense up and tuck inwards at her words. “When you were hurt the most you have ever been, it was raining.”

“But now…” She licked her lips, bracing against a crash of thunder that vibrated the very ground under their feet.

“Cardia, please, you’ll get sick—we’ll get sick, if we stay out here much longer.” His hands gently took hold of her arms.

She held fast, feeling warm tears forming in the corners of her own eyes. This had been a poor way to start and she regretted it. Bringing up his pain first? She would make it right. She had to. “Now you are in a garden, surrounded by things you have brought to life. You nurtured these plants with your own hands. No one had even asked you to and yet it was something you took onto yourself. And then you taught me to do the same. Even when I had poison living in my body, you taught me how to tend the world around me and help it to grow. And… _I’m_ here too, Victor. I’m here, because of _you_. I can touch anything—can touch _you—_ because of your tireless research to take my poison away. ”

She lifted one hand to lightly touch the Horologium—once the poisonous blue but now a soft white. “I can’t take away your terrible memories like you took my poison, but maybe… I can help you make new ones. To cover them. We can. Together.” She leaned into him, forcing him to sit up straighter. Slowly, deliberately so as not to slip or fall, she lifted one of her legs up and lay her knee on the stone beside him. Shifting her weight to the knee she rose over him. And when she had her other knee to the other side of him, propping herself up in the air over his lap there in the dark and the rain, she folded her arms around the back of his neck and laid her head atop his.

Would this get through to him? Or was it ultimately a meaningless attempt to fix what was terminally broken? A selfish and arrogant exercise made towards something she was unfit to even approach? He was precious to her, so precious, and she could not stand for him to continue suffering alone. He had to know at least that much.

Cardia felt his arms reach around her, and for an instant she was afraid he’d push or pull her away, tell her again they needed to go inside. Instead, he slowly, tentatively held her around the middle. Unknown tension inside her released with a deep sigh of relief.

A second later she felt herself dragged down from her knees right into his lap. With a squeak of surprise, her legs kicked out from under her, and she pulled them in and around him instinctually. His arms tightly wrapped now around her back rather than her waist. Seated now, rather than balancing on her shins, her front was pulled flush with his own. No longer just shielding Victor from the rain with her body, she felt his warmth with her very core. She had no heartbeat of her own, but clinging to him with nothing between them but their slick, drenched clothes, she could feel his beating into her clearly, rapid and strong. She marveled at the sensation and of feeling him _breathe_ against her. The rhythm of his chest expanding and closing was enough to move her whole body. It felt good to be so close.

When a deep crash of thunder shocked her out of her reverie, Victor tightened his embrace and stood up. Cardia still cradled against him, he forged his way back to the mansion. She protested. What if he slipped like she had on the way out there? She could walk— she _would_ walk.

But Victor did not put her down. He shook his head and calmly refused. He did not want to let go. _Like before_. Except he was holding _all_ of her with his hands this time, and not just her face.

As he carried her, it suddenly became apparent how very tired she was. It was late and the cold rain and the anxiety of trying to build a better memory for her beloved had drained her. She felt comforted by the beating of his heart against her body—the only heart between them.

Once to the door, both of them realized how little Cardia had planned in advance for their diversion outside. She had laid no new clothes down, nothing with which to dry themselves. She had just led him outside on a spur of thought. Victor set her down just outside the door, under the overhang and shielded from the continuing torrent. She stood red-faced and discomfited by her lack of foresight, wringing out the edges of her shirt while he carefully ventured indoors. With the electric light they left on shining on her, she could see how much the wet fabric stuck to her body, how sheer it was. The edges of the Horologium were clearly outlined, and she found herself gently pushing the wet fabric around the crystal, transfixed by the unique feeling under her fingertips.

It was a polite clearing of the throat that finally took her attention away. Victor, freshly dressed with a mostly dry towel hanging over his shoulders, spread a towel between the two of them. While she wrapped herself up in it, he took a second towel to her hair and rubbed it vigorously for her. It was an unexpected sensation, and she felt like one of Saint-Germain’s pieces of fine jewelry or tableware getting buffed. She could hear his light laughter at her perplexed reaction.

“I’ll meet you upstairs,” he told her, kissing her lightly on her exposed forehead and handing her with a dry set of clothes and leaving to go clear the floors of his water trail. She found herself wanting to towel his head like he had done for her, but he had already turned away. She would have find another chance for it in the future. It felt nice and she wanted to share the feeling with him.

When they both finally laid in bed for the second time that night, exhaustion quickly overtook her, and she drifted to sleep before checking if he could do the same.

* * *

Victor was not next to her the next morning. Not like he had been, the nights prior, laying sprawled on his side of the bed.

Blinking in the soft grey light, she woke to a new sensation. His face was pressed against her neck and his arms were wrapped around her, holding her loosely, but close. He breathed deeply, peacefully.

She could still hear the rain outside, though not nearly as heavily as in the dead of the night. And yet he slept. Cardia couldn’t be certain that anything had truly changed, but she was elated all the same that he could finally have at least one night of peace.

She would make breakfast for the both of them later, but for now... he could _sleep_.

* * *


End file.
